Mental health issues underrepresented in children’s TV shows

Accurate portrayal of mental health on television can help children and young people understand and communicate their concerns to trusted adults, minimizing the isolation that can result from mental health issues, the Geena Davis Institute for Media and Gender Research said in a research report. Mental health issues are underrepresented in television programming watched by children and teens: A total of 17.4% of all episodes surveyed featured at least one character with an apparent mental health issue.

The World Health Organization:Globally, one in seven people aged 10-19 years experiences a mental disorder, accounting for 13% of the global disease burden in this age group. Depression, anxiety and behavioural disorders are the leading causes of illness and disability among adolescents.

The institute’s study consisted of an analysis of American-made television series indexed by Nielsen to audiences ages 2-11 and 12-17.

The report recommends:

• Write more characters who suffer from mental illness. Characters who suffer from mental illness make people feel heard, understood and validated. Include more characters suffering from mental illness in stories to help children and young people recognise mental illness in themselves and others. Stories with characters suffering from mental illness can also encourage parents to talk to their children about mental illness.
• Consider intersectionality when casting characters with mental illness. The majority of people who report experiencing mental illness in the U.S. are girls and women, LGBTQIA+ people, and people of color. Featuring characters who represent these communities and include their intersectionality reflects the real world of people struggling with mental illness and validates their real struggles for audiences.
• Do not blame or shame. Storylines are an opportunity to explain the various causes of mental illness that are beyond the individual’s control, such as societal expectations, inadequate public resources, and unforeseen events. Stories can also explore why many people do not notice warning signs and seek help, which does not suggest any personal moral failings.
• Make your portrayal of mental health explicit, intentional, and clear. While mental health issues in general have never been widely shown on screen, mental health symptoms have even less been explicitly shown. Make mental health issues clear, rather than obscuring them. Doing so will reduce the stigma and taboos that prevent open conversations. Name the symptoms, talk about what they entail, and feature them in multiple episodes of your series.
• Encourage children and young people to seek help. Television has the power to encourage positive behaviour among young people, such as seeking help for mental illness and supporting friends and family in their distress. Consult mental health professionals to realistically portray help-seeking behaviour among children and young people.

Key findings from the show:

• Characters with mental illnesses are rare on television: only 1.3% of major characters have a mental illness. Explicit Mental health issues: 2.1% of characters implicit Mental health issues (implied mental health issues are depictions of mental health issues that are implied but not explicitly stated).
• The narrative downplayed mental health issues in the LGBTQIA+ community, and while mental health crises uniquely affect LGBTQIA+ individuals, the analysis did not identify any LGBTQIA+ characters struggling with mental health issues in the episodes analyzed.
• Fewer than 2% of young people have mental health issues. Among major characters, those over 50 are most frequently featured with explicit mental health issues (3.5%), followed by children and teenagers (1.7% each) and adults aged 20-49 (0.7%).
• Male characters are more likely to struggle with substance abuse: Among characters with obvious mental health issues, male characters are nearly twice as likely to suffer from substance use disorder as female characters.
• Female characters are more likely to suffer from mood disorders and self-harm: Among characters with obvious mental health issues, female characters are roughly 12 times more likely to suffer from self-harm than male characters, and roughly three times more likely to suffer from mood disorders (depression, bipolar disorder, etc.).
• Female characters with obvious mental health issues are more than twice as likely to seek help than male characters: half of female characters with obvious mental health issues take action to seek help, compared to just 21.3% of male characters.